The more decisions you make, the better you’ll become at making them. Muscles get stronger with use, and so it is with your decision making muscles. — P.21

Success and failure are usually not the result of a single event. — P.23

The secret of unleashing your true power is setting goals that are exciting enough that they inspire your creativity and ignite your passion. — P.27

In the future, instead of asking, “How can I avoid doing this painful task?” ask, “If I don’t take action now, what will this ultimately cost me?” Pain can be your friend if you use it effectively. — P.49

For most people, the fear of loss is much greater than their desire for gain. Most individuals would work much harder to hang on to what they have than to take the necessary risks to shoot for their dreams. — P.52

Whatever we focus determines how we feel. — P.69

The power of beliefs is dramatically demonstrated by case studies of people with multiple personality disorder. Because of the strength of their belief, the utter certainty that they have become someone else, their mind alters their physiology in measurable and amazing ways. Their eyes actually change color, physical marks disappear and reappear, and even diseases such as diabetes or high blood pressure come and go. All of this is based on a patient’s belief as to which personality — which belief — is being manifested. — P.94

Time and time again it’s been proven that our brains cannot tell the difference between something we vividly imagine and something we actually experience. — P.96

All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs. How do you replace limiting beliefs? The most effective way is to destabilize your old belief — shake your certainty — by questioning it. — P.102

The only true security in life comes from knowing that every single day you are improving yourself in some way. — P.104

All human progress is preceded by new questions. — P.119

If you ask a lousy question like “Why do I keep screwing up?” you’ll get a lousy answer. On the other hand, when you ask a much more useful question such as “How can I use this?” it automatically leads you in the direction of solutions. New answers come from new questions. — P.121

Remember, it’s not only the questions you ask, but the questions you fail to ask, that shape your destiny. — P.125

A single change in the habitual questions you ask yourself can and will profoundly change the quality of your life. — P.127

If I continue to ask any question, I will certainly receive an answer. — P.118

Two of my favorites are once the simplest and most powerful in helping me overcome challenges: “What’s great about this?” and “How can I use this?” Asking the first question disrupts negative momentum and reminds me that we can choose to attach any meaning whatsoever to an experience. Asking the second question focuses me on the “how” rather than the “why,” on solutions and benefits rather than the unanswerable. — P.141

The gut-level response to any question is often the one that should be trusted and acted upon. — P.143

You’re not broken. You don’t need to be “fixed.” If you constantly avoid rejection, your brain is simply doing an effective job of protecting you from pain. But, completely avoiding the opposite sex also produces pain! To create a new behavior, you must simply “rewire” yourself. — P.153

When people derive a secondary benefit from the very painful behavior or emotion they’re trying to change, this is called secondary gain. This need to preserve the secondary benefit is often one of the greatest inhibitors of lasting change. — P.155

The irresistible power of conditioning is graphically illustrated by Boston Celtics great Larry Bird. When he was hired to star in a soft-drink commercial, the script called for him to miss a shot. He made nine baskets in a row before he could bring himself to miss. — P.167

A fundamental law of conditioning is that any pattern that is continually reinforced will become an automatic and conditioned response. Anything we fail to enforce will eventually dissipate. — P.168

Impeccable timing is absolutely critical to effective conditioning. For reinforcement to work, it must happen at the exact moment the person does something you want. If too much time passes before the behavior is reinforced, either negatively or positively, then the connection is made intellectually, but not emotionally in the nervous system. — P.170

Once a pattern of behavior is established, the tool of variable reinforcement is far more effective for maintaining it. So, after about a month of consistent rewards for a new behavior, taper off. Instead, reward yourself or others spontaneously. — P.172

Once we put a label on something, we create a corresponding emotion. Nowhere is this truer than with diseases. Studies have shown that diagnoses of cancer and heart disease can often produce panic in patients, leading to helplessness and depression that can actually impair the effectiveness of the immune system. — P.189

To remind yourself of the power of persistence, consider the metaphor of the stone cutter. How does he break open a giant boulder? He whacks it as hard as he can. The first hit doesn’t leaven even a scratch, but he strikes hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. He persists even when his actions seem to be futile. But he knows that just because you don’t see immediate results, it doesn’t mean you’re not making progress. So he keeps striking the rock. At some point it doesn’t just chip, but literally splits in two. Did the final blow break the boulder open? Of course not. It was the constant pressure being applied to the challenge at hand. — P.204

You are the source of all your emotions. At any moment, you can create or change them. …But you don’t need an excuse to allow yourself to feel good. — P.211

Never spend more than 10 percent of your time on the problem, and always spend at least 90 percent of your time on the solution. — P.249

If we want the deepest fulfillment, we can achieve it only one way: by deciding what we desire most in life — what our highest values are — then committing to live by our decision every single day. — P.279

Remember you can achieve your means values in life (money, position, degree, children, relationships) and still be unhappy. Unless, you live consistent with your deepest (end) values, you’ll but still lack the ultimate fulfillment you truly deserve. — P.285

Decision making is nothing but values clarification. — P.288

Don’t expect people to abide by your rules if you don’t clearly communicate what they are. And don’t expect them to live by your rules if you’re not willing to compromise and live by at least some of theirs. — P.305

Having learned the rules of tens of thousands of people, I can tell you that the rules you express as “I should not” you will break. The rules you express as “I must never” you will rarely if ever break. — P.306

The only way a relationship will last is if you see it as a place that you go to give, not a place that you go to take. — P.356

Whatever results we’re experiencing in our lives are the accumulation of a host of small decisions we’ve made as individuals, a family, a community, a society, and a species. — P.380

If you want to play the game of life and win, you’ve got to play full out. You’ve got to be willing to feel stupid, and you’ve got to be willing to try things that might not work. Otherwise, how can you innovate, how can you grow, how can you discover who you really are?